Binance Proactively Withdraws from Canadian Market

Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency, announced that it would quit the Canadian market in a move described as proactive by it following the application of the new guidance issued by Canadian regulators.

On February 22, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) set new rules that asked the crypto companies operating in the market to file new preregistration undertakings and adhere to added restrictions, Cointelegraph reported.

Binance announced its withdrawal from the Canadian market, although it had filed a new preregistration undertaking, saying: “Unfortunately, new guidance related to stablecoins and investor limits provided to crypto exchanges makes the Canada market no longer tenable for Binance at this time.”

The prominent crypto exchange wished to continue to engage with Canadian regulators aimed at a thoughtful, comprehensive regulatory framework, adding it would send emails to its Canadian users to give them information about how the withdrawal will impact their accounts going forward.

Binance is not the only cryptocurrency exchange that quit the Canadian market. OKX also decided to pull out of Canada in March, followed by decentralized exchange dYdX and blockchain fintech Paxos in April.

It was operating in all states and provinces of Canada except Ontario, where it ceased its operations in March of this year because of the Ontario Securities Commission’s new prospectus and registration requirements for cryptocurrency exchanges.

Presently, 11 crypto-related platforms are authorized to do business with Canadians, according to the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA).

CSA’s new rules included prohibiting companies from permitting Canadian clients to enter into crypto contracts to buy and sell any crypto asset that is itself a security and/or a derivative and defined stablecoins as a security.